Podcast — Episode 15
Thornton Wilder and American Literature: A Conversation with Hansong Dan
Our guest on this episode is Hansong Dan, author of To Realize the Universal: Allegorical Narrative in Thornton Wilder’s Plays and Novels.
Part One:
How popular is the study of English and American literature in China? (1:15) — Why study American literature? (2:15) — How Chinese students respond to Henry James, Sherwood Anderson, and Upton Sinclair (5:00) — Individualism, the American dream and Hollywood (9:00) — From small-town childhood to big-city education (12:45) — Allegory and Thornton Wilder (14:30) — Allegory vs. realism in 20th-century fiction (18:15) — Thornton Wilder’s modern allegories (19:45) — Our Town: theology and existentialism — The cosmology of the small town (26:15) — Mortality and transience (29:30)
Part Two:
Different concepts of allegory: classical Chinese literature vs. Western literature (1:00) — Dream of the Red Chamber and a subtle political allegory (1:30) — Terrorism and literature after 9/11 (4:30) — Sensationalism and the challenge to serious literature: the terrorist vs. the novelist (6:45) — Don DeLillo, irony, state violence (10:45) — Translating Thornton Wilder in China (19:00) — Wilder vs. Thomas Pynchon: a translator’s perspective (23:00) — How to translate Pynchon into Chinese (25:00)
This episode was recorded and edited by Andrew Oh, and the Athenaeum Review podcast is produced by Creative Disturbance.